


burning like a fire in my head

by sinningpumpkin



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Sex, Aphrodisiacs, Chess, Dirty Talk, M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:28:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinningpumpkin/pseuds/sinningpumpkin
Summary: He lifts a gloved hand and Sylvain can see it tremble. Saliva pools under his tongue and for a moment all he can imagine is Hubert striking him across the face while muttering something about his insolence. Instead, he moves his queen and puts Sylvain in check.~Or, weekly chess games between Hubert and Sylvain finally get heated.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 11
Kudos: 93





	burning like a fire in my head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Froggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggie/gifts).



Sylvain spots him on a random wander past the Cardinal’s Room. They’d had a meeting there earlier in the morning. Once they’d discussed and rehashed all the strategy for the entire war, Sylvain had gone off to training. It helped work out some of the tension, but left him bone tired and wandering through the monastery that they all used to call home. As he wanders past their war council room, he hears a curious, delicate clicking. Silently, he sticks his head into the room and sees Hubert.

It’s a miracle that he isn’t spotted immediately, and Sylvain holds his breath for fear of discovery as he watches him. The room is empty save for him, where he sits at one of the long tables with a chess board in front of him. Beside the board, a lumpy silk bag sits. Hubert reaches into it without looking, removing roughly hewn wood pieces. They land on the board with a little click. They aren’t the pieces of a noble, certainly not a Vestra, and Sylvain finds he can’t look away as Hubert sets the board. The whole set fits together with a charm that’s nearly overwhelming and completely at odds with the figure that Hubert cuts in the empty room.

With all the pieces set, he spins the board and begins playing himself. The executes his openings quickly, spider’s fingers flying across pawns and knights as he develops both positions in brilliant, unique ways. It’s been a long time since Sylvain has played a game without a lot of gold riding on the line, but it’s easy to get sucked back into the allure of this game when Hubert is the one executing it. Even if it is a bit sad to watch him play alone. His moves slow down as the game wears on. He doesn’t use a timer and Sylvain has no idea how long he’s been watching before he makes himself known.

“If you needed a partner, you could have just asked,” Sylvain says as he saunters into the room. Hubert’s eyes snap up to him, something like embarrassment coloring his cheeks.

“I didn’t.” It’s a clear dismissal, but Sylvain plays stupid easily enough. He takes the seat next to Hubert, twisting the heavy oak chair so they can come closer to facing each other. On Hubert’s next turn of the board, Sylvain catches it with his finger tips. His side of the board is white, Hubert’s black. Fitting.

“Let’s play,” Sylvain says. He surveys the board as Hubert stares at him incredulously. As far as he can tell, both sides are equally developed.

In his periphery, Hubert lets loose a mean little grin. “Do you know the rules?”

Sylvain hums instead of rising to the bait. And instead of resetting the board, he pinches a pawn and shifts it forward. Hubert has gotten his surprise--and his expressions--under control. If he’s surprised, Sylvain can’t tell. His attention shifts from antagonizing Sylvain to playing the board. His eyes dart across his pieces, and Sylvain wonders if he can see it too. 

Once again, the speed that Hubert makes his plays increases. They trade pieces quickly, thinning the board even further. Sylvain can still see it, his path to a checkmate, hewn mainly by being underestimated. He bites back his grin. The giddiness catches up with him then, pieces clicking over the board without felt bottoms to quiet them. “These aren’t the pieces of a noble, Hubert.” He grunts and shifts a bishop. It puts pressure on his king and Sylvain castles. “Were they a gift?” 

He doesn’t expect Hubert to answer freely. “Yes. From an old friend.” The game stumbles to a halt after he murmurs it from behind his hand. Sylvain both loathes and finds immense interest in Hubert’s strange mysteries. He blinks and remembers to make his move.

“They’re well loved,” he says, carefully. Thankfully, Hubert doesn’t seem to take any offense. Another few moves and Sylvain sees his opening. His queen shoots across the board and puts Hubert’s king in check. For a moment, Sylvain wonders if he’s stumbled into a trap, but Hubert’s following move is juvenile at best. Sylvain chases him around the board for a handful of moves, before he’s finally mated.

Sylvain leans back with a laugh, spreading his arms with a pleased sigh. Hubert stares at the board, face empty but anger still radiating off him. “Best not to underestimate your opponent, don’t you think?”

Hubert’s lip curls. “Again.”

~

Sylvain has one win to every three of Hubert’s. They continue to meet once a week, an unspoken understanding that when Sylvain shows up, Hubert will be waiting with the prepared board. Occasionally, he’s seized with the fear that he’ll show up and Hubert will be nowhere to be found, but he’s always waiting. Sylvain plays white, Hubert black. They fall into each other’s traps, fail to read each other, and Sylvain finds the most fun that he’s had in years across the board from Hubert.

It seems natural enough to push boundaries. Sylvain’s silver tongue can’t just be stifled by a withering look from his opponent. If anything, that only spurs him on. Most days end with Hubert snarling at him in disgust, even as he tips Sylvain’s king. Different kinds of victories, he supposes. Sometimes, Sylvain thinks he might finally be pushing Hubert to the edge, urging him to touch something other than those wood pieces. Hubert is frustratingly obstinate.

On an afternoon after tense meetings, amidst the impending doom of war, they get at each other’s throats more than normal. “You are insufferable,” Hubert hisses. His eyes are stubbornly pointed down at the board, Sylvain wonders if he’s afraid and knows it's nothing that simple.

He clenches his jaw and moves a pawn. “Oh? I’m the insufferable one? You can barely get your head out of your rear long enough to look me in the face.”

He lifts a gloved hand and Sylvain can see it tremble. Saliva pools under his tongue and for a moment all he can imagine is Hubert striking him across the face while muttering something about his insolence. Instead, he moves his queen and puts Sylvain in check. The only evidence that he’s heard Sylvain’s crudeness at all is a tight exhalation. Sylvain wants to push him more, wants to bend him until he splits down the middle and has to rise to the bait. But it seems like all he’s capable of is ruffling Hubert’s feathers a bit.

He leaves their weekly chess match with hot cheeks and another loss under his belt.

~

His subconscious seemed to be lying in wait for that first little fantasy. Once it takes ahold of him, Sylvain can’t seem to escape it. Hubert’s anger spawns inappropriate daydreams of getting slapped or spanked by his gloved palms. Sylvain spends most of his nights laying on an uncomfortable cot, remembering things that Hubert had said to him and twisting them into scandalous, filthy things. He tries to ignore how his cock throbs and drips into his smalls, but sleep becomes fitful and marked with inchoate shapes of Hubert. In a moment of crazed lust, he begins to think with a deep certainty that Hubert somehow dosed him or hexed him, as retaliation for whatever annoyance became too much.

The ridiculousness of such a claim doesn’t take long to set in though. That realization is quickly followed by another. Sylvain had felt this need for a long time. It simply had an outlet now, a timeline in between private meetings and an intimacy within those.

As his face is pressed into a pillow, hips working against the uncomfortable cot, he whimpers something in the shape of Hubert’s name and knows he needs to do something about it. After he finishes, spend slick and cooling in his smalls, the urge doesn’t cease. So, Sylvain makes a plan.

~

The plan isn’t particularly detailed. It consists of breaking into Hubert’s room, finding some sort of concoction that will make Sylvain impossible to resist--and maybe lower his inhibitions--and joining Hubert to play chess as if everything is normal. In practice, he thinks it may be more daunting, but after making sure that Hubert isn’t in his rooms, everything falls into place easily enough. He jimmies the lock with a scrap of metal and slips inside. The next step is strangely easy as well. He’s not sure what he was expecting for all of Hubert’s dark portents, but the anal organization of everything takes him off guard. He starts examining the collection of bottles lining the top of his desk. It almost seems too easy, once he deciphers Hubert’s looping scrawl and realizes he’s holding an aphrodisiac.

Sylvain’s not sure what the proper dose is, or even if it’ll have negative side effects. But, it seems simple enough to tug out the stopper, knock the entire vial back like a shooter of liquor and tuck it into his pocket in case Hubert needs to revive him.

He makes his way across the desecrated monastery, keeping careful track of his bodily sensations. How embarrassing would it be if this was a  _ slow acting _ aphrodisiac? By the time he makes it to the Cardinal’s Room, his blood feels thick in his veins, sweat making his tunic stick under his arms and he figures that the arousal should be hitting soon.

The board is set as he saunters in. Hubert is staring down at it, looking vaguely troubled with his fingers laced together in his lap. “Hello.” Sylvain’s already slurring a little bit as he takes his seat next to Hubert.

His eyes immediately go from far off and wistful to cutting. “You look ill.”

Sylvain laughs. “That’s not very polite.” He leans his head on his fist and stares at Hubert. His vision is beginning to flutter lightly, going whispery around the edges.

“Well, I hope you can still give me a good game,” Hubert says. He gestures to the board impatiently and Sylvain blinks.

It’s already becoming hard to focus, but he manages to move his first pawn with a decent idea for his opening. Hubert moves normally, in what seems to Sylvain a lightning fast moment. He seems to be moving through a thick, invisible molasses. Hubert must not notice, because he doesn’t comment. They develop their pieces for a few silent minutes, as saliva pools under Sylvain’s tongue and a faintness begins to creep up the back of his neck. Sylvain’s cock is thick in his trousers, wetness beading at the tip as it throbs with a steady heat. His thoughts are stubbornly slipping away from him, and he knows he doesn’t have much lucidity left.

Hubert takes his knight while Sylvain tries to get his thoughts into some semblance of order. “You look tense, Hubert.” He doesn’t say his name often and this surprise is written clearly across his opponent’s face.

“No more than usual. Make your play.”

Sylvain swallows and doesn’t bother to even pretend to think about their game any longer. Instead, he extends a hand toward Hubert. He looks at it like one might a venomous snake and pulls his hand away before Sylvain can lay his fingers over his wrist. His hand falls limply into the space between them and Sylvain would normally know a rejection when he sees one. But, right now, he just lists even closer to Hubert. “You could always… work it out on me.”

Hubert blinks at him. Sylvain watches the wheels turning in his head, even as his eyes go heavy and his pulse throbs in his fingertips. But then, Hubert does something Sylvain isn’t expecting. Instead of a smack across the face or a grip to pull him closer, Hubert slowly says, “I’m not… exactly sure what you mean, Sylvain.” And his voice isn’t icy or heated, only confused with his name tumbling over his tongue.

Hubert is surely insufferable and apparently a lot duller than Sylvain realized. “For Sothis’ sake,” he mutters, before lunging to Hubert. He lets loose a gasp and then Sylvain is on him, tongue in his mouth and hard cock against his hip. Hubert bites his tongue and shoves him back. Their lips part with a slick sound that has Sylvain’s cock pulsing, even when his back meets the table. The wind is knocked out of him, leaving him gasping and flailing. He knocks the board to the ground and for a moment, Hubert looks murderously angry. He wedges his hips between Sylvain’s thighs, looming over him--more monster than man

But instead of leaving Sylvain there to lick his wounds and tend to himself, broad gloved hands grab at his hips. Hubert yanks him to the edge of the table, pressing their cocks together as he dives in for another kiss. Sylvain is even less coordinated now than earlier. He lifts his hands and grabs two handfuls of Huberts hair, whining and whimpering as he ruts into him and lets Hubert bite at his lips. His entire mouth throbs from those bites, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything besides Hubert’s  _ hard _ cock against his and the thought that he’s finally getting what he wants--

Hubert wrenches his head back. When Sylvain tries to follow his mouth, he slams his palm down on his sternum, pinning him down and nearly rendering him breathless again. “What did you take?” He snarls.

Sylvain knows that he means to be scary, but somewhere his wires are crossed and beneath his clothes he feels like he’s drowning in sweat. For some reason, he laughs at Hubert, making him look all the more murderous. A thin line of drool slicks out of the corner of Sylvain’s mouth and he tries to shove a clumsy hand into his trouser pocket. Hubert smacks his hand away and reaches in himself. Sylvain closes his eyes to avoid seeing his reaction to the vial.

“You took it all?” Hubert grabs him by the jaw and shakes him until Sylvain’s eyes come back open. His tongue flicks across his bottom lip, almost touching one of the gloved tips of his fingers. He nods. “Dear Goddess.” Hubert looks exasperated, but not afraid, and against all odds, Sylvain trusts him. He grinds lazily against Hubert’s belly, until his steely grip curls around Sylvain’s hips and brings that to an end as well. “You’ll be incapacitated for close to six hours and your… need won’t abate until you’re brought off. A few times probably.” Sylvain can still keep track of his words easily enough. “And, oh Goddess, I kissed you--” Hubert lifts a hand to his brow and makes to step away.

“Don’t,” Sylvain whines, locking his ankles at the small of Hubert’s back. “C’mon, you said…” He loses his train of thought and wipes his messy face with the back of his head. “You said I needed to get off, so get me off.” Through the haze he can see how Hubert is looking at him, half disbelieving and half lustful. “I kissed you,” Sylvain repeats. “You must be feeling it too,” he slurs.

“Yes…” Hubert mumbles. The hectic, desperate clasp of Sylvain’s ankles at his back relaxes minutely as Hubert leans over him. “I am.” He lifts a hand and pinches the point of Sylvain’s chin. It pulls his lips a bit wider and he moans a little.

“Fuck me, then,” he whispers it all in a rush, lifting trembling arms to wrap around Hubert as best he can. “Fuck me, use me--” Hubert groans and lets go of Sylvain’s chin. “I want you, I want you.” Sylvain can’t seem to leash his tongue, not even when Hubert begins to strip him. “Why do you think I did all this? Please, Goddess--”

Hubert cuts him off with a bruising kiss and finally puts an end to his inane babbling. Sylvain is grateful for it. He claws at Hubert’s clothed back, gasping and drooling into his mouth as his clothes fall away from him. Hubert pulls away to wrestle his tunic all the way off of him. “Be quiet,” he hisses, as Sylvain starts to babble for him again. He bites his tongue until he tastes blood and still the adoring, filthy words bubble up his throat. They fall into a lull for a moment, Sylvain silent and pliant as Hubert’s hands drag down his chest and belly. “Better,” Hubert murmurs.

The word bounces through Sylvain’s skull, echoing until it feels like his entire body is rattling with the praise. He wants more. Nothing in the world could compare to hearing more praise spill from Hubert. He lifts a hand to his mouth, pressing the back of it against his lips to keep quiet as Hubert goes to work on peeling off his trousers. He kneels and tugs off Sylvain’s boots in order to discard his pants entirely. His soiled smallclothes come next, cock bouncing up against his belly and smearing wetness there. Chills rake over his skin like a fever, heat burning up inside of him and suffusing out into the air.

Hubert steps back between his legs, gloved hands roaming over him with a leashed sort of curiosity. The fever abates and pleasure takes its place. His cock weeps against his belly even at the smallest of touches, as if his entire being is crying out for Hubert. His concoction was surely one hell of a drug. It only gets better when Hubert hunches over him. He drags his lips from below his jaw over his throat, mouth parting to nip and suck at his fair skin. Even with the most glancing of touches, Sylvain knows they’ll be a vibrant red for the next day.

Hubert’s hands cup the curves of his ribs, thumbs at the edge of his pecs. His mouth drags lower, teeth scraping over his sternum. Sylvain pulls his hand away from his spitty mouth with the intention to beg, but then Hubert’s hands are pressing inward. He pushes Sylvain’s pecs together, almost giving him cleavage. A bright flush of humiliation suffuses over Sylvain’s face, curtailed only by the whitehot pleasure of Hubert’s mouth on one of his nipples. His cock pulses, hands flying above his head to anchor himself to the edge of the table. “More, more, more,” he mumbles.

Hubert doesn’t bother with scolding him. He drags his teeth over the bud of Sylvain’s nipple and tweaks the other between a gloved thumb and forefinger. It feels good in a way that no other touch has. Sylvain clenches his thighs around Hubert’s hips, begging melting into a haze of whimpering moans. Hubert moves on fast enough, hands dragging down to his hips and biting quick marks in a line down his belly. He straightens, pinching the inside of Sylvain’s thigh when he whimpers for him.

Hubert pulls his hands away from him entirely then, muttering something that makes Sylvain’s skin buzz with magic. He grabs Sylvain’s thigh and spreads him open, dipping his other fingers between his ass cheeks. They’re wet with something and Sylvain belatedly realizes he summoned some sort of magic lube. It drips in warm lines over his taint and slicks the way as Hubert twists a finger into him. Sylvain opens around him easily and the stretch seems only to amplify his need. He squirms, ignoring Hubert’s tightening grip on his thigh in favor of trying to fuck himself on his hand.

“Stay still,” Hubert snarls. Sylvain stutters to a halt, eyes rolling back into his head as pleasure pulses through him in sluggish waves. Hubert presses a second finger inside of him, sating Sylvain for the moment. He’s still wearing his gloves, the well worn leather slick and warm inside of him. “There you go,” Hubert mumbles. Sylvain almost can’t hear him over the pounding of his own heart. He spreads his fingers wide inside of Sylvain, until his rim is stinging and his fingernails gouge at the fine wood beneath him.

He manages to keep still, if only to keep Hubert’s fingers moving inside of him and the praise close to spilling off his tongue. Instead, his mouth runs. Whiny demands of more and harder spill from his mouth as he pants and drools. Hubert seems unimpressed by the figure he cuts against the wood, a mean little smirk on his lips as he drives his two fingers deep inside of him. “Yeah, yeah--Fuck, more,” Sylvain whimpers, head lolling to the side as he trembles from head to toe.

“You like it like this,” Hubert mumbles. That mean stare drags down his body, to where he’s splitting Sylvain open around his fingers. “Always wanting  _ more _ ,” he hisses as he drives another finger inside of him. The stretch is hot and insistent, making Sylvain shout toward the ceiling as his toes curl. Even better, Hubert keeps talking in that hushed, mean tone. “Begging for me like a whore,” he spits that last word with a scathing heat that makes Sylvain’s belly tighten.

Hubert seems to realize what he said, fingers coming to a slow stop inside of him. Sylvain twists and shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a whore--did all this just to get your cock, Hubert, c’mon,” he whimpers, back arching into that solid presence inside of him. That moment of stillness stretches on for what feels like an eternity, before Hubert pulls his fingers out of him. Sylvain whines, peering at him with bleary, begging eyes. But Hubert isn’t stepping away. He’s opening his trousers with his clean hand, staring at Sylvain with a single minded intent that makes him go liquid.

“Slut,” Hubert scoffs. Sylvain’s lashes flutter and he nods, spreading his legs wider. He fights to keep his eyes open as Hubert pulls his cock out of his smalls. His hole clenches at the length of it and Hubert bares his teeth in a mean smile. “This what you need?” He strokes himself with his slicked hand and Sylvain’s mouth waters. He nods and expects Hubert to make him beg.

He doesn’t. He steps up between Sylvain’s thighs without bothering to shed any of his other clothing. Hubert braces himself with a hand on Sylvain’s belly and uses the other to guide his cock inside of him. The head catches on his swollen rim, hot and thick as it nudges at his hole and then up against his taint. Hubert laughs at his answering desperation, but still ruts forward.

The head of his cock pushes into Sylvain, wider than his fingers, hot and slick and heavy as Hubert guides himself in. Sylvain’s eyes roll back into his head and his entire body pulses with heat. Now connected, Hubert doesn’t bother with politeness. He snaps his hips and seats himself inside Sylvain entirely. His balls draw up close to his body and with a shout, Sylvain cums. The orgasm washes over him strangely, blood pounding in his ears and rendering him practically deaf, as his spend sluggishly spills from the tip of his cock.

Hubert starts fucking him immediately. He grabs Sylvain by the hips, half dragging him across the table and onto his cock with every movement. Sylvain realizes that he’s still hard and that the edge of overstimulation is far off. He reaches above himself again, bracing himself against the edge of the table so he can start meeting Hubert’s thrusts himself. He’s uncoordinated and desperate, sweat making him slide across the lacquered wood. It takes him a while to realize that the strangled, pathetic noises filling the room are coming from him. His throat is already sore from how he’s been screaming, and he’s powerless to stop it now.

Hubert huffs out quiet breaths, chin against his chest as he watches their bodies come together repeatedly. A hot flush has taken up residence in his cheeks, bottom lip between his teeth. Sylvain’s thighs are getting scratched up by the seams of his uniform and his toes curl at the feeling. Hubert gives one more good thrust and settles himself deep inside of Sylvain, swiveling his hips slowly as he leans over him.

He slides a gloved palm over Sylvain’s mouth before he can even begin to beg. “What do you think they’d think? If someone walked in.” His eyes are crazed and bright. Sylvain can taste the leather of his glove and it only manages to make him harder. “You, spread out bare for me like a cheap whore.” He huffs a mean laugh and Sylvain feels another orgasm curl up through his guts. “Then again, everyone already knows that.”

Sylvain finishes again with a shout, thankfully muffled against Hubert’s palm. He keeps the grip on Sylvain’s face as he starts to fuck him, letting him howl his pleasure into the damp leather as Hubert fucks him like an animal. Even with the pace of his thrusts and the bruising grips he keeps on Sylvain’s body, he barely looks ruffled. Sylvain shudders through another orgasm at the thought of Hubert pulling out of him, tucking himself away and going about his day as if nothing was the matter.

A moment later, Hubert tosses his head back, a groan rattling up from his chest. Another thrust and his cock pulses, spilling deep inside Sylvain. He keeps fucking Sylvain, stirring up the mess inside of him until Sylvain manages another weak orgasm.

Hubert pulls free and lets go of his mouth. Sylvain blinks and takes stock of his aches and pains. As he sits up to survey Hubert as well, he realizes that neither of them have managed to go soft yet. The overwhelming haze of the drug has passed, but Sylvain can feel it working inside of him, keeping him hard and wanting. Hubert must feel the same. “Wanna keep riding this out in my room?” Sylvain says, an easy smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. 

~

The moon is high in the sky by the time that Sylvain’s cock finally goes soft. He’s sprawled out on his bed, Hubert’s most recent spend dripping out of his asshole. He had also finished once in his mouth and again across the top of his ass. Hubert’s a steady, warm presence beside him, not yet trying to sneak out of his bed. Sylvain twists his sore body and flings an arm across Hubert’s middle. In private, he had stripped as well and Sylvain found it hard to resist touching him, even now.

Amidst the haze of finishing, he indulges the urge, pillowing his cheek on Hubert’s bony shoulder and scratching through his scant chest hair. “We could do that again, you know.” Sylvain hopes he’s just speaking what they’re both thinking.

Hubert sighs. “Yes, I suppose so.”

Sylvain grins. He knows that he’ll probably wake alone, but for now, he sleeps knowing that there’s more in the future. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i hope u enjoyed it


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